Talk:Anthropus Camps/@comment-208.66.144.190-20120118061342/@comment-174.24.8.86-20120119223332
Haha, I see... Well, I'm no expert, but here's how I understand it: Waves are used for the simple reason that they are more attacks; if you are trying to get item drops such as Dragon Eggs or Troops required items (Runes, Roots, Talons, etc.) then 1 attack = 1 chance for a drop. More waves means more attacks, which means more chances. BUT if you are just trying to get resources, waves aren't of much use since you should get all of them on the initial attack--wipe out a Camp (or other player) and move on. They respawn after a while, but hitting them repeatedly yields little benefit. As far as the waves themselves go, each wave counts as it's own attack or battle. You need to have enough troops in that wave to win. For instance, you wouldn't want to send 2 waves of half as many troops as is required to a Anthropus Camp. They would most likely be wiped out; both of them. All the options for troops deployment you see in the table above is ONE WAVE, or one attack. Everything on the table is (supposed to be) how many troops/research levels it takes to wipe out a Camp with no losses, but you would send them all in one wave, yeah? So if you want to take on a level 6 camp (with no losses) you would need to send either __ A) 8k LBMs + 200 ATs __ B) 20k SSDs __ C) 10k BDs __ D) 10k LBMs + 500 AT + ED __ and so on, as the table indicates. Any of those are viable options, but they must be sent as one complete wave or you will suffer losses. Where you may have gotten a little confusion is from the method of farming item drops by sending diminishing amounts of troops in wave after wave. This is because, again, simply put: More waves/attacks = More chances for an item drop. People use less and less troops, usually because they don't have enough to just send full waves back to back. You may have seen someone say to send waves like this: "1) Send enough troops to kill Camp with no losses. 2) Send half as many troops. 3) Send one troop. 4) Send one troop. 5) Repeat until your one troop dies, then begin again at Step 1." ... or something similar. This works because after you wipe out the defenders of a Camp, they take time to respawn. Having only one troop attack a Camp is sufficient when there are no defenders, and they can give you that "one chance" for an item drop just the same as one thousand troops. Sending one troop over and over is all that is necessary until the defenders start respawning. My opinion? That's not a great strategy. Train twice as many troops as you need to take any Camp you are after . If you need 20k SSDs, train at least 40k. Then, once you have enough troops, you can just send one wave of 20k, and another wave of 20k. Once they get back, send them out again. This way, you run 0% risk of losing your hard-earned troops; either of the waves could wipe out a fully defended Camp by themselves. Keep training more troops, and eventually you'll be able to send wave after wave after wave; with no down time, no waiting, no risk of loss. This requires more troops (and patience while training the troops), but it's a better method in my opinion. Once you get around 100k troops, you'll be able to send out 5 waves of 20k at a time... but at that point you'll likely be taking on level 8 Camps, and you'll need more troops for multiple (full powered) waves. I hope this demystifies some of the mechanics for you. Sorry it was so wordy... I'm not good at keeping things short and sweet, haha. Just a few other tips: It's always better to be more cautious in this game... If the wiki page says you need 20k of something, send at least 21k. If it says you need a certain level research, overcompensate with the troop count (by as much as possible). It's way better wait, train a few more thousand troops, then attack (successfully) than to have to retrain a brand new army from scratch. Train high-level troops ASAP! LBM are effective early in the game, but you'll want to upgrade to SSDs at your first opportunity. Why? There's no (or at the very least WAAAAAY less) chance you'll lose them to some stupid random number generator, plus they're faster and require no other units to be sent in with them for carrying heavy loads. Then you'll want Banshees, for the same reasons. They're more powerful, faster, and just all-around better than SSDs. ALWAYS prioritize researches pertaining to battle (Metallurgy, Medicine, Dragonry, Weapons Calibration, etc.). They make the difference between winning and losing, plus at higher levels they take FOREVER to upgrade, so it's best to get them started now and never have down time with your research. Read as much of the Dragonomicon as you can find time for. It's immensely helpful for understanding this game. You can find a link to it in the Beginner's Guide (which you can find from the Home page of this wiki). Again, sorry you just had to read more text in my comment than is actually on the wiki page, but I hope it helped. =P